Letter to the editor: Commitment to Constitution, Obama

The Constitution of the United States of America empowers our government to "promote the general welfare" of our citizens and to establish justice and liberty for all.

The common good, not the interests of the privileged few, are the rightful concerns of the leaders of a democracy.

The representative democracy envisioned by the founders and codified in the great document they wrote, the Constitution, can flourish only when the promise of liberty and equality are realized, when a good education is available to all our children, when all our citizens have access to good, affordable health care, when there is opportunity for all Americans to earn a decent living and to continue to believe that the practical dreamers who wrote the Constitution had all of us in mind.

President Barack Obama understood this when he brought the war in Iraq to a responsible end, doubled the funding for Pell Grants for college students, set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and signed the Affordable Care Act, which expands access to health care to 30 million Americans, allows young people to remain on their parents' health insurance until age 26 and ends the worst abuses of the insurance industry, like denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and canceling insurance coverage when a person gets sick.

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This election is about much more than choosing a president.

It is about the heart and soul of our country and it is about whose vision, Gov. Romney's or President Obama's, best expresses the Constitution's mandate to work for the common good of all our citizens.

The American people understand that what is good for the privileged few is not always good for the rest of us. President Obama has said: "I want an America where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

This election is about "we the people" and it is about our vision for the future of our country.

It is about our fundamental belief that we are a community of citizens with an abiding commitment to each other.

President Obama also said: "Through government we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves."

If we believe in the enduring vision of the Constitution, we must elect President Obama to a second term.

Judith Fore, Saratoga Springs

Due to an editor's error, the following letter was received in time for the political submissions deadline for today's election but was inadvertently left off the list of those queued for publication.